Abstract

The 42-mile-long White Oak River is one of the last relatively unblemished watery jewels of the N.C. coast. The
predominantly black water river meanders through Jones, Carteret and Onslow counties along the central N.C. coast,
gradually widening as it flows past Swansboro and into the Atlantic Ocean. It drains almost 12,000 acres of estuaries
-- saltwater marshes lined with cordgrass, narrow and impenetrable hardwood swamps and rare stands of red cedar
that are flooded with wind tides. The lower portion of the river was so renowned for fat oysters and clams that in
times past competing watermen came to blows over its bounty at places that now bear names like Battleground
Rock. The lower river is also a designated primary nursery area for such commercially important species as shrimp,
spot, Atlantic croaker, blue crabs, weakfish and southern flounder.
But the river has been discovered. The permanent population along the lower White Oak increased by almost a third
since 1990, and the amount of developed land increased 82 percent during the same period. With the growth have
come bacteria. Since the late 1990s, much of the lower White Oak has been added to North Carolina’s list of
impaired waters because of bacterial pollution. Forty-two percent of the rivers’ oyster and clam beds are
permanently closed to shellfishing because of high bacteria levels. Fully two-thirds of the river’s shellfish beds are
now permanently off limits or close temporarily after a moderate rain. State monitoring indicates that increased
runoff from urbanization is the probable cause of the bacterial pollution. (PDF contains 4 pages)